


Snow White, Blood Red

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-19
Updated: 2012-03-19
Packaged: 2017-11-02 05:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, two little girls ran away into the dark woods, to get away from a monster...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow White, Blood Red

**Author's Note:**

> Technically, this falls into the same universe as [Iron and Blood](http://archiveofourown.org/works/364761), but is somewhat less depressing :)

It was the cold that woke Snow.

She must have slept, or as close to that as was possible, but she still felt exhausted as she struggled to sit up. It took her a moment to get her bearings. A cave, barely more than an outcropping from a cliff, the entrance shielded by trees. It was still dark, but whether that was because the daylight was blocked by the branches, she couldn't tell.

Snow winced as her joints creaked and crackled, her bones feeling stiff as old wood. No wonder, really, since she'd left her cloak behind, when she had fled with...

"Red!" She looked around and at the very back of the cave saw a stain of colour.

Her legs protesting, shaking with cold and exhaustion, Snow stumbled towards Red. The other girl was curled up as tight as could be, barely visible under the hood of her cloak. Her arms were bare, scratched to ribbons in their flight, and Snow knew her feet would be tattered as well.

"Red," she said softly, kneeling down. "Red, are you all right?" It was such a trite question. How could she possibly be all right? Snow touched her arm gently, then gasped. "You're cold as ice!" She flung her arms around the other girl, trying her best to warm her with her own shivering limbs.

Red flinched. Her face was whiter than snow, and there were tracks of dried tears on her skin, delicate as frost. "Let go," she whispered hoarsely, struggling against Snow's embrace.

"You're cold," Snow insisted. "Let me warm you."

"Let me go!" Red struggled free with a sob, scrambling, half-crawling across the cave floor like a terrified animal. She pressed herself into the furthest corner, as far from Snow as she could be, wrapping her arms over her head. "Don't touch me!"

"Red!" Snow picked her way after her. "Red, please. Don't be scared."

Red's dark eyes stared wildly at her through tangled hair. "Scared?" she whimpered. "Scared? You should be running! You saw what I did! What I'll do to you! What I did to..." Her fingers sank into her hair, twisting and tearing. "Peter. Peter. He's gone. And it was me. I did it." She rocked violently, her voice breaking into violent wracking sobs. "I did it."

Snow knelt down beside her again and wrapped her arms around Red. Red struggled, sobbing, but Snow clung onto her. "I'm not leaving you," she whispered fiercely. "And I'm not going to let you go. I'm going to look after you."

"But I'm a monster," Red whimpered, pushing against her arms. "I've killed..." Her voice broke and she started sobbing again. "Peter. He trusted me. I chained him. I..."

"Red! It wasn't you!" Snow caught Red's chin in one ice-cold hand, forcing the girl's face to hers. Red's eyes were wild, blood-shot, and tears were streaming hot and thick down her pale cheeks. "You're not a monster. I know monsters, and you're not one."

Red stared at her blindly, trembling, then threw herself into Snow's embrace, burying her face in Snow's shoulder. Her fingers dug painfully into Snow's back, but Snow made no complaint, just smoothing her tangled hair and murmuring soothingly. 

It felt like they were wrapped up like that for hours, as Red wept until all her tears were spent, both of them caught up in the fabric of the cloak.

Finally, Red whispered, "Why? Why didn't she tell me?"

"She was afraid," Snow replied softly, cradling the other girl in her arms. "Afraid of what they would do to you. Afraid you would hate yourself for what you were. She wanted to protect you from it all."

"Protect me?" Red's voice cracked. "What about Peter? What about all those men? Why did she think it would be a good idea to hide it?"

Snow bit her lip, then whispered, "Because she saw what happened to your mother."

Red lifted her head. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright. "My mother?"

"Granny told me, when we came to find you. When she was bitten, it happened to her, and it passed through the blood. To your mother, to you," Snow said softly. "She told me what happened to your mother. About the hunters. She tried to keep you safe, so no one could hurt you."

Red trembled. "All the locks? All the bars?"

"To keep you both in," Snow whispered.

Red stared at her, looking more like a child than a grown woman. “I don’t want to be a monster,” she said plaintively.

Snow caught her hands, squeezing them hard. “The wolf is the monster,” she said, “but it’s not you. Granny said the cloak contains it, it’s enchanted. If you wear the cloak, it’ll never hurt anyone again.”

Fresh tears spilled down Red’s cheeks. “She always told me to wear it,” she whispered, moving one hand to tug the cloak more snugly around her. “I thought she was just worrying too much.”

“She was,” Snow said softly. “But for a good reason.” She brushed the tears from Red’s cheeks with her thumbs. “Come on,” she said. “We need to keep moving. This place isn’t sheltered enough. We’ll freeze if we stay here.”

Together, clinging to each other like children in a storm, they stumbled back out into the daylight. It was bright, the sun blinding, but the air was still crisp. Their breath misted in pale whorls, as they crept across the snow, Red’s cloak like a splash of blood in a world of black and white.

“Firewood,” Red said as they staggered onwards. “We’ll need some.”

Snow nodded. “Do you know how to start a fire?” she asked, stooping to gather twigs and broken branches.

Red nodded distractedly, tugging at the edges of her cloak. “Granny taught me,” she said, turning on the spot and sniffing at the air. “I think I can smell something.”

Snow knew better than to say anything, and let Red lead the way, gathering more sticks as they went. They eventually came to a clearing, at the heart of which there was a small cottage. The roof looked like part of it had caved in, and the upper beams of the cottage were blackened, as if by fire, but it was a shelter, and even a shattered shelter was better than none.

“Do you think there’s anyone here?”

Red shook her head, staring at the building. “It burnt a long time ago,” she said, wading through the snow towards the half-open door. She hesitated, and Snow immediately saw why: deep claw marks scored the wood. “I knew it was here. I didn’t think it would still be standing.”

Snow’s stomach twisted. “This was Granny’s house?”

Red nodded mutely, then shouldered the door open, forcing her way into the building. Snow followed, looking around the clearing. She could see it so clearly: Granny’s brothers all standing against a wolf, none of them realising the danger. The wolf came for something, and in the end, he got what he wanted.

She stumbled into Red, barely inside the door. She seemed frozen to the spot. “Red?”

Red pointed a trembling finger across the room. On the far side, there was something made of metal, dusty, with thick bars. It took Snow a moment to realise that she was looking at a cage big enough for a child. 

“What… what was that for?”

Red pulled her cloak tightly around her. “Granny had my mother,” she whispered, her face bone-white. “If she turned into a wolf as well…”

“She had to protect the baby,” Snow whispered, horrified. She dropped the sticks to wrap her arms around the shaking Red. “No wonder she got the cloak. She wanted to save you from a life like that.”

“And now we’re back in it,” Red whispered.

“No,” Snow said fiercely. “You’re not back in anything. You have the cloak. You know what you are.” She took Red’s face between her hands. “You can do this. You can be Red. You can be the strong, powerful woman your grandmother believed you could be. You can show the world that just because you’ve got this thing in you doesn’t mean you have to be a monster.”

Red stared at her, then brought her hands up to clasp Snow’s. “I’m scared.”

“I know,” Snow said, pulling her into her arms and hugging her. “It’s a new world for you. But I’ll be here with you.”

“Thank you, Mary,” Red whispered.

Snow White drew back and looked her friend in the face. “No,” she said. “My name isn’t Mary. It’s Snow White.”

Red’s brows pulled together. “Snow White? The Princess?”

Snow White nodded. “The same.”

Red looked at their tangled hands. “I’m sorry about your father.”

Snow smiled quietly, sadly. “And I’m sorry about Peter.”

Red was silent for a long time, then she looked up from their hands at Snow. “We should make a pact,” she said, her voice still hoarse with grief. “We’ll always be there for each other. This is where we start from. Here. Now.”

Snow managed a weak smile. “Two girls against the world?”

Red shrugged. “Why not?” she said quietly. 

“Sisters, then,” Snow said decisively. “We’re blood sisters.”

“Don’t you have to…” Red’s hands trembled. “Snow, what if it infected you too?”

Snow nodded. “Then no blood,” she said quietly. “But we’re sisters all the same. You and me.”

For the first time since their flight, Red’s lips turned up in a tremulous smile, as if she could hardly believe someone would want to be tied to her. “Sisters.”


End file.
